John Bernard Feit: Former priest charged with the 1960 murder of Texas beauty queen Irene Garza

For more than half a century, the unsolved killing of a young schoolteacher and beauty queen who was last seen at church, haunted the Texas city of McAllen.

Now, almost 56 years after the bludgeoned body of 25-year-old Irene Garza was pulled from an irrigation canal, police have charged the former priest who heard her final confession.

Using a walker, a frail-looking John Bernard Feit, now 83, appeared in court this week in Phoenix after being arrested a day earlier at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was jailed on $750,000 (£520,000) cash bail while he awaits transfer back to Texas.

“This whole thing makes no sense to me because the crime in question took place in 1960,” Mr Feit said, adding that he plans to fight extradition to Texas.

Mr Feit’s arrest comes despite a grand jury probe in 2004 which concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

McAllen Police would not comment on what evidence was gathered or presented to the grand jury that finally brought the charge.

“The arrest of John Feit on Tuesday night is the first step in providing justice for the murder of Ms Irene Garza. After nearly 56 years, Ms Garza’s family and our community will finally see that justice is served,” the Hidalgo County district attorney, Ricardo Rodriguez, said.

The authorities said Ms Garza visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where Mr Feit was a priest, on 16 April 1960. Ms Garza, who was Miss All South Texas Sweetheart 1958, had planned to go to confession that evening. She never returned home.

Her body was found days later. An autopsy found that she had been raped while unconscious and had been beaten and suffocated.

Mr Feit was previously suspected of involvement in Ms Garza’s death after telling police that he heard her confession – in the church rectory, not in the confessional – but he has always denied killing her.

He later spent time at a treatment centre in New Mexico for troubled priests and after that became a supervisor and had a part in clearing priests for assignments to parishes. Among the men Mr Feit helped to keep in the ministry was child molester James Porter, who assaulted more than 100 victims before he was ultimately defrocked and sent to prison.

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Mr Feit left the priesthood in 1972, married and went on to work at the Catholic charity St Vincent de Paul in Phoenix, training and recruiting volunteers and helping oversee the charity’s network of food pantries. Its executive director, Steve Zabilski, said the charity knew about the suspicion of the killing that followed Mr Feit, but he remained an employee and always denied any involvement. Mr Zabilski said he was shocked by Mr Feit’s arrest “because John is one of the most kind and caring and truly compassionate people that I’ve ever met”.

Ms Garza’s family and friends had long pushed the authorities to reopen the case, and it became an issue in the 2014 district attorney’s race. Mr Rodriguez had promised that, if elected, he would re-examine the case. The case continues.

AP